


Of all of the things they’re good at not talking about, it’s the thing they don’t talk about the best.

by OldEnoughToKnowBetter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Mention of Weecest, Shaving, Wincest - Freeform, bunkerfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:38:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldEnoughToKnowBetter/pseuds/OldEnoughToKnowBetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is aware, objectively, that he's been through worse things than sharing a sickroom with Crowley. Sharing a cage with Lucifer, cold turkey demon blood detox, that time Dean sang "Kiss from a rose" in the car- plenty of bad things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean plays Florence Nightingale.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest thing I've written since college!

Sam is aware, objectively, that he's been through worse things than sharing a sickroom with Crowley. Sharing a cage with Lucifer, cold turkey demon blood detox, that time Dean sang "Kiss from a rose" in the car- plenty of bad things.

But there's something peculiarly awful about Crowley in his 90%-cured state. Being de-demonized has left Crowley a not-all-that-nice almost-human, with wiggle room for some of humanity's tackier peccadilloes. Like content piracy (he's made Dean torrent at least 200 hours of HBO) and white lies ("That last cookie is definitely mine, Moose. You've already had three.") and sizeist slurs (see: Moose).

While a lifetime of hanging bad paper has left the Winchesters rather exposed on the ethics front, Sam didn't expect Crowley to be so fundamentally sketch as a person. Crowley hasn't forgotten he was very recently King of Hell, and he's half pimp, half tedious bureaucrat. Only now he's mawkishly sentimental about his former subordinates. He's been nattering on about his secretary's boyfriend problems for at least an hour.

His fashion sense was apparently attached to the evil parts, and chelated right out. He’s currently wearing one of those “As Seen On TV” Gothic snuggies and a “When I Grow Up I Want To Be a Kardashian” t-shirt. He ordered it online and made Dean go into town to pick it up. Sam feels bad, on a personal level, for everyone who engaged with the t-shirt in any way, from the Bangladeshi tween who sewed it to the crane operator at the container port who brought it onto U.S. soil. Also, Crowley killed that guy they saved from the Wendigo, and Sarah, who had a husband and a little kid, just lately. He almost killed Jodi. Sam got an email from her with the header, “So. Funny thing.” He stood over Crowley’s sleeping body with a pillow for about forty-five minutes that night. The Winchester “nobody rides for free” OS for living doesn’t have a sub-program to parse out forgiveness for partially cured demons yet.

But the worst of it, the worst of it, is the way Crowley sucks up to Dean. He thinks Dean has some kind of gimmick for making peace with your bad self, and he’s determined to pry it out, so he can stop feeling this uncomfortable remorse. And Dean is offensively sympathetic, and even used the phrase “I feel you, man.” Maybe that will turn out to be part of a clever scheme to win 90/10 Crowley’s trust and convince him to go convalesce somewhere else? Sam hopes so.

Because what Crowley doesn’t know, will never know, is that Dean didn’t just go along with his bad self when he came back from hell. What he did was re-up in the John Winchester Army of Conscripted Sons, Taking Care of Sammy Division. And Dean has failed to re-integrate and been subjected to regular stop-loss events and involuntary deployments ever since. There hasn’t exactly been a still heart of the moment, a five o’ clock in the morning when Dean looked his own darkness in the eye and accepted his shadow self. He’s just been keeping himself busier than Martha Stewart at Christmas.   
  
So Sam resents Crowley even more for pestering Dean at a time when he and Dean have finally bridged some of the space between them and can maybe live like human beings for a bit. Can maybe have a real conversation despite their baggage. He wants to have a beer and watch Steve McQueen with Dean, but Crowley is obsessed with “The Carrie Diaries” and monopolizes the ancient tv, while using Sam’s computer to hang out in chat rooms for the show. Sam isn’t really supposed to have a beer, either. They’re not sure yet what’s wrong with him, but it resembles anemia in a lot of ways, so they’re treating that, and Sam’s weak as a kitten much of the time. That leaves Sam on bed rest, along with 90/10 Crowley, who could actually probably be up and about a lot more, but enjoys being waited on. It was Crowley who figured out how to use the vintage intercom system. He taps the Bakelite button now, and whines, “Deannn… I think my temperature’s back. Will you come check it?”

“Such a beautiful man, your brother.” Crowley says to Sam. “Bet it was fun playing doctor with him!” Sam rolls over onto his side so Crowley can’t see the color rising in his face. He remembers a Nebraska motel room, and begging. “Dean, Dean, please, just let me touch it, c’monnn-“ “No! Sammy, it’s not right.” “And us jerking off like this is ok?” “Sure, all guys have circle jerks. It’s just a really small circle. Besides, you’re too young to touch anybody’s junk but your own.” “I’m fourteen! You were fucking people when you were fifteen!” “I’m different.”

Even as a teenager, Dean was a smug bastard. And at eighteen, leaning back against the grimy motel wall, his bare chest gleaming with sweat as he jerked his thick cock, he was impossibly, absurdly beautiful. Sam wanted to eat him, to lick him, to tackle him and marry him and get the hell away from him. It was like sharing a bed with a nuclear reactor. He felt like a blast shadow.

He remembers the bus stop. They sat inside, the night cool for the end of August, and they held hands for two hours, waiting. Their hands gripped together, aching, clammy with sweat, not talking. While everyone else climbed onboard they stood together by the shining aluminum flank of the thing, heads bowed together, bodies open against each other. When Dean tilted his head up to kiss Sam for the first and last time, his face was full of terror and determination. His lower lip was pushed out with stubbornness, and it slid between Sam’s parted lips. The tip of Sam’s tongue touched Dean’s soft mouth, and he made a little “hhh” sound of shock and pleasure. A jolt of electricity had gone through them both, because Dean shuddered and clutched Sam’s hips. And then Dean was stumbling back from him, hand over his eyes, and Sam could smell the exhaust of the bus engine and hear the nice lady driver honking the horn.

Thinking of it now, with a decade-plus of sexual experience under his belt so to speak, he understands that the spark that leapt between them was just pure chemistry. What witches call sex magic and yogis call kundalini. As a teenage near-virgin, it was almost as frightening as it was erotic. Dean had plenty of experience back then, though, and Dean must have felt its rarity, its danger and its addictive properties.

He shivered with longing through three states, and then he devised a mantra involving the virtues of normalcy and recited it to himself, staring out of the bus window, alternating iambic pentameter and haiku formats. And he locked it all down, and got himself some normal, and he stopped getting hard from the smell of antiseptic and the sound of AC/DC.

So when Dean comes back into the room where Sam and Crowley are lying in their narrow cast-iron beds, Sam doesn’t let his eyes run down Dean’s torso or linger on Dean’s hips. He is a past master at the elided gaze. He knows exactly what parts of Dean’s body he can touch without making either of their ears warm, exactly which kind of jokes don’t leave an awkward silence in their wake. Of all of the things they’re good at not talking about, it’s the thing they don’t talk about the best.


	2. Lollipops from doctor.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley convinces Dean that Sam needs a sponge bath.

Dean’s stomach twists every time he sees Sam in the white metal bed. Sam is pale and gaunt; he looks older than Dean. His Dudley Do-Right jaw is dark with stubble and his lovely mane is greasy. Sam looks like he could take out a werewolf but not two, a poltergeist but not a rugaru. Crowley, of course, looks fine. He’s letting his hair and beard grow, he’s mentioned aspirations towards a mullet- “you know, modern and ironic, real Williamsburg swag!” Apparently he wants a piercing too, since he’s thinking he’ll be staying in this body. Dean refuses to discuss piercings with Crowley.

Dean isn’t sure how he wound up discussing anything at all with Crowley. When he hauled Sam into the car under a sky full of flaming angels, Sam was muttering about “…get Crowley, I almost fixed him—“ and he wouldn’t leave until Dean put the tied-up, bad-smelling former principle of downstairs in the back seat. They blindfolded Crowley for the last part of the drive, of course, and they threatened him with various tortures should he attempt to escape and discover his location. When they opened up the Bunker’s infirmary they warded the doors, even though they’re not sure at all what percentage of evil a demon needs to be before a Devil’s Trap will work on him. They also don’t know if Crowley’s evil will grow back, like a tumor, or if he’s just such a tool he’s driving them progressively more nuts. Humans, man.

When Dean comes into the sickroom he notices that Sam’s Fortress of Bookitude is threatening to engulf the bed, and he moves a stack of dusty volumes down to the foot before he drops a hand to Sam’s forehead. “You got a temperature too, geek boy,” he tells Sam as he hands Crowley the thermometer. He’s not in the inserting-things-into-Crowley’s-mouth-or-other-orifices business. He’s brought them a tray of Gatorade and iron supplements and Ensure, all the stuff Kevin could find at the town Walgreens that might help with messed-up blood.

Crowley has the thermometer under his tongue but he’s trying to talk anyway, about what kind of job he’s going to look for. “I saw an ad for collection agents,” he says, “that would be nice, huh? Human contact, helping people?” Dean snatches the thermometer and gets the reading off it- 99.5, but he suspects Crowley runs hot. He doesn’t care what color an almost ex-demon’s parachute is; he doesn’t actually care much how anybody earns their living, as long as there’s people whose job it is to make pie and hentai.

Dean gives Crowley a couple of Tylenol, and he’s turning away to adjust Sam’s reading light when he hears Crowley say, “Sam sure looks like he could use a sponge bath, yeah?” Dean chokes on his own saliva, has a coughing fit, and looks down at Sam, who’s lying there like he wishes he could disappear into the blankets. “Shut up, Crowley!” they say simultaneously. “Jinx! Jinx! You can't talk 'til somebody says your naaame!” Crowley yelps.

While Dean is struggling with a rejoinder to this, Sam catches his eye and scratches at the stubble on his jaw. Obviously, Sam really does need to shave and get cleaned up, and he’s too inclined to dizzy spells to shower by himself. “Shut up, Crowley. I’m gonna get Kevin in to keep an eye on you while I help Sam shave.” Sam looks excited and relieved, as any guy who’s been lying in his own funk for days would, and also entirely mortified, like any guy whose big brother is about to help him bathe.

Dean finds Kevin eating the middles out of Oreos and leaving the eviscerated cookie shells in a pile. They’ve all been through so much, it seems like all bets are off regarding behavioral conventions or even common decency. “I need you to look after Crowley for a while, I gotta get Sam in the shower.” Kevin gives him a vicious side-eye. “Can I kill just the ten percent?” “No. You can’t kill any part of him, at least today. You can whip his ass at Scrabble, though, and I’ll back you up if you make up words.” “I don’t make up words, you prole!”, Kevin says disdainfully, but he heads to the infirmary.

Dean gets some thick rubber mats out of the exercise room and covers the tiles under the showerheads with them. He goes downstairs to Sam’s room, finds some clean sweats, grabs Sam’s razor from his sink, and gets clean towels out of the laundry room. Then he can’t really stall any more. Back in the infirmary he clears some more books out of the way and helps Sam out of bed, gets a shoulder under him, and walks them towards the showers.


	3. You're Soaking In It.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has terrible timing.

Dean has to help Sam undress, because Sam is unsteady on his pins. Trips to the john have been his big expeditions, these last few days. The t-shirt and yoga (so?! They’re comfy!) pants Dean got him into on the night of burning angel wings are now crusty and vile in the way that only sickbed sweat can make clothing. Sam would like them burned, but he’s afraid of what Crowley might order from Hot Topic to replace them. Dean tosses the clothes into the hamper (it came with the shower room. It’s a laundry hamper. It’s theirs, and a girl didn’t buy it.)

Then he eases Sam down to the mats covering the floor and strips down to his boxers. Once he’s hung his clothes over one of the other showerheads, he turns and gets his first good look at Sam. And he’s shocked, because a worried, shaggy man with a heavy beard shadow is wearing the body his brother had at sixteen, before all that muscle was laid on. He sees the echo of Sam’s lanky, gawky teenage frame, and the tracery of scars that winds around it now, and his heart aches. What the hell have they done to themselves, to each other, to their bodies, in pursuit of John Winchester’s holy war? What doesn’t kill you might make you stronger, but who the hell ever wanted to be this strong?

Dean tests the water, then grabs Sam by the shoulders and helps him under the warm spray. Sam makes happy noises for a second, then jolts and doubles over. “what, what is it—“ “cramps, my legs, hurts—“ Dean slides them down to the mats again, leans his back up against the tile wall and pulls Sam into the fork of his legs, then reaches around and starts rubbing the knotty muscle above Sam’s knees as the hot water comes down on them. Gradually Sam relaxes, the spasm passing, and he stretches his legs out.

“I hate feeling this way.”  “What, like the world’s tallest naked hobo? I got your razor.” “No, you jerk. Like my body’s all debilitated. I musta lost twenty pounds, and don’t say _shit_ about my girlish figure.” “You’ll get better”, Dean says. “We have access to the arcane lore of generations of wise people, plus thirty years of Readers’ Digest. We’ll figure it out. Garth’s on it too.”

As Sam moves back into his arms, Dean starts humming softly. It’s elegiac, moody. “What is that? It sounds familiar.” “Springsteen. I used to sing it when you were sick when you were a baby.” Dean says, and then he sings,

 _At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet_  
And a freight train running through the  
Middle of my head  
Only you can cool my desire  
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire 

“Jesus!! Way to be inappropriate, Dr. Spock!” “What? It was on the radio _all the time_ when you were little, and it was the mellowest song I knew!” “Huh. I guess it beats Sir Mixalot--“, Sam says, settling back against Dean’s chest. The feeling of resting his body along Dean’s is a rich, meaty, drug-like sensation. Oxytocin. He remembers it from their childhood, lying in Dean’s lap in the back of the Impala. From his days with Jess, on the couch in their apartment with a pint of ice cream. Skin contact that you drop into, that turns your blood to chocolate milk and your heart to a stuffed bear with shiny eyes. He can’t help a little moan of pleasure at the comfort of it. And wonders will never cease, because Dean doesn’t issue the expected mocking snort- instead, Dean huffs out a little sigh of contentment himself. Warm water runs down their shoulders, runs in rivulets through Sam’s matted chest hair, turns the hair on his legs black. The room is hazy, the water heater must be huge. They could probably stay under here for hours.

Dean holds his brother in his arms, safe in their underground bunker, sure for the moment that someone will know what’s going on with Sam, how to give him his strength back. He’ll need Sam at fighting weight, no matter how sentimental he feels about the coltish frame Sam’s currently sporting. No matter how much it reminds him of the days when Sam would sprawl on a motel bed, just out of the shower, and Dean would notice some new thing about his body. Like the sudden rangy breadth of his shoulders, or the fine line of dark hair disappearing into the towel at his waist. Those were dizzy, scary days, when their arms would brush as they trailed Dad into a diner and Dean would get goosebumps. It was scary because they were afraid they’d give in, he tells himself now. They’re long past that, it was a crazy phase. Now Sam is just his brother, his hunting partner, the other half of the demon-stomping, heaven-and-hell shaking Winchesters. And Sam needs a shave, because one of them needs to be able to talk to civilians without scaring the horses.

Dean slides out from behind Sam, lets Sam lean back onto the tiles. He stands up, his boxers soaked to his wet skin, shining and flushed, and Sam absolutely stares at his ass as he walks over to the pile of towels and shaving kit. Dean’s ass looks really good, Sam can’t help but notice. The year in Purgatory left him more fucking built than ever. Dean comes back and kneels next to Sam, out of the spray. “Slide over a little, and tilt your chin up.” They’ve shaved each other plenty of times over their lifetimes, whenever one of them had an injury that limited mobility- hell, Dean learned to shave by shaving Dad, when Dad broke both arms falling into a boarded-up cesspool on an abandoned farm that was overrun with wraiths. Sam thought that was pretty funny, actually, but he was only eight. When your one parent is ex-military, shaving is part of how you hold the line. It’s something men do if it’s even remotely possible, in rice paddies and WalMart parking lots. Or in Purgatory.

As Dean spreads shaving cream on his jaw, Sam hears himself asking, “When you were together with Benny in Purgatory, were you- - together, together?” Dean snorts, tosses his head so drops fly from the spiky ends of his hair, hitting Sam in the face. “It’s Purgatory, Sammy. The pleasures of the flesh- eatin’, sexin’, even naps—they don’t _apply_ there.” Which is an answer, although not exactly the answer Sam was looking for. 

Dean holds Sam’s jaw carefully in his hand and moves the safety razor over his cheek. Sam hopes the face revealed by the razor’s passes isn’t too hollow and lined, that he still looks enough like himself. He must, because he can hear Dean’s breathing now. Dean pushes wet strands of hair off Sam’s temples, smoothes them back gently, draws the razor delicately over Sam’s chin. The warm, wet air clings to Sam’s newly exposed skin. “Tip your head back.” Dean leans in and strokes the razor down Sam’s neck. He’s up on his knees, his left fingers steadying Sam’s chin while his right hand guides the razor. His eyes are so green, his absurd mouth pursed in concentration. Sam lets his eyelids drop, slitting his gaze so he can study Dean’s hips in the wet boxers, just a foot away. Dean’s definitely getting hard. And in a second, he’s gonna be done shaving Sam, and he’s gonna notice Sam is fully erect.

“So- shampoo?” Sam says brightly, and leans forward, cupping his hands under the water, to rinse his face. By the time Dean’s back with the shampoo, Sam is up and facing the wall, palms flat against it. But that wasn’t really such a great idea, because a) he’s really dizzy now, and b) the whole situation seems much dirtier in this position.  Especially when he looks back over his shoulder and meets Dean’s darkened eyes. He reels a little from the headrush, and Dean drops the shampoo and catches him, and now they’re really in trouble. Standing together under the shower, which is still deliciously warm, slippery-wet, a single pair of soaked boxers between them, foamy bits of shaving cream dotting Sam’s throat.

The intercom crackles, and they jump at Crowley’s nanny-goat voice. “You guuyyys! Kevin’s cheating!”


	4. All Bets Are Off.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the shower incident, Sam and Dean go to bed...separately.

Late that night Dean comes into the infirmary to see if they need anything. “Thank you, Dean, but I’m perfectly fine.” Crowley says in his idea of an ingratiating tone. As if a short middle-aged not-quite-human former serial killer with a Cockney accent who’s growing in hipster sideburns could charm anyone, let alone Dean. “Get some rest”, Sam says, and Dean lays a warm hand on his shoulder and reaches to turn out the light. “You didn’t kiss your brother goodnight, Dean!” Crowley chirps. “Just to shut you up—“ Dean says, and bends down and gently kisses Sam on the forehead. God, his lips are soft! Once in ninth grade Sam wrote a sonnet about Dean’s mouth, then carefully set the scrap of lined paper on fire out behind the soccer field.

After Dean’s left the room Crowley starts to snore, and Sam’s alone with his thoughts. Can you call it alone with your thoughts, if you’re thinking obsessively about someone else? Jesus, that moment in the shower was hot. Sam runs the memory through his head like a silk ribbon, and feels butterflies in his stomach. Dean’s arms around his ribcage, his nipples brushing Sam’s slick chest, the way Dean steadied him on his feet protectively. That second when their eyes caught, like the hook-and-loop of Velcro, before Crowley’s voice broke in. Remembering, he realizes he could smell Dean’s wet, gel-slimy hair and his deodorant and hear the water thrumming on the rubber mats, and that Dean had been opening his mouth to say something. Sam wonders what Dean was going to say. Sam realizes he’s going to jerk off thinking about his brother, something he hasn’t let himself do in years. Crowley better not wake up.

Dean closes his bedroom door behind him, secure in the knowledge that Sam has the intercom if he needs anything. His balls ache like a teenager’s. He wants porn, lube and an orgasm, ASAP. He’ll watch some wholesome tentacle-and-schoolgirl action and this dirty feeling will go away. Somehow, he wound up carrying one of Sam’s plaid shirts in with him. Must have picked it up meaning to throw it in the laundry. Probably if he leaves it on his bed he’ll remember to wash it in the morning. When he rubs his face against the soft, worn cloth, he can breathe in the smell of Sam. He’s lying belly down on his memory foam now, grinding his hips into the mattress. He only got a tiny glimpse of Sam’s hard cock, but it fills up his head. He spreads his legs and rocks his ass up, totally not thinking that probably it would feel even better to have Sam’s warm, thick cock in him than that time or five when a girl fucked him with a strap-on. He thinks Sam would probably whisper “I love you” while they were fucking. He thinks Sam might kiss with his eyes open. He thinks- and then he’s coming hard into Sam’s shirt, which he’s really gonna have to wash now.

After Sam comes and wipes himself down with a stray sock, which he balls up and tosses behind the shelves of tongue depressors and cotton swabs and paregoric, he considers the situation objectively. He’s apparently still in love with his brother. However, he is now a grown man who can make his own choices. And a legally dead felon who hotwires even his friends’ cars. He has been possessed, he has been varieties of dead, he has killed a large number of creatures, including some who were inside people, and he has done some truly disgusting things. During the time Dean was in Hell, the time with Ruby, he justified fucking her very simply. Since he never got to have the Bad, Wrong Thing he really wanted, he was sure as hell going to take the consolation prize. Lucifer’s cruelest taunts were always about how Sam was going to die wanting what he’s never had. So who cares anymore about what’s Not Right? If Kevin can cheat at Scrabble, Sam can fuck his brother.

Dean is almost asleep, limp and sprawled on his memory foam, but a tantalizing thought keeps circling in his head. When he was with Lisa, sometimes after they had sex they would have ice cream in bed. Ben would be asleep down the hall. It was like the world was a snow globe, sparkly particles sifting softly down onto the eaves of a tiny house. She would put her head on his chest. Dean finds himself thinking now of how on those sweet nights, his eyes would fill with tears and his heart would burn with shame, because he loved Lisa, but he wasn’t whole without Sam. In his very own bed, in his own bedroom, in their actual bunker, what would it be like to hold Sam in his arms and drift off to sleep? What would it be like to wake up with Sam’s octopus arms twined around him, and Sam’s pointy nose poking into his armpit, like when they were little?


	5. Smothered pork chops.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin cooks, Dean shakes his ass, and Crowley is the hero.

Sam wakes up feeling about the same, not so much sick as drained of all energy. It’s time to get this business sorted out. If he’s going to talk Dean into taking a shot at _together_ -together, he’s gonna need his full sex hoodoo going. Crowley is still sleeping, still snoring softly. As if he’s somehow connected to Sam’s consciousness and felt Sam wake up, Dean comes strutting in, looking perfectly magnificent in his usual crappy clothes. Dean can wear the hell out of t-shirts and plaids, and jeans love to wrap themselves around Dean’s thighs and settle on his hips. If they were _together_ -together, maybe Dean would let Sam pick him out some nice clothes, some going-out-to-dinner clothes, sometime. Dean deserves nice clothes.

Maybe Sam could slide his hand into the back pocket of Dean’s jeans while they were walking down the street, sometime. Feel the roundness of Dean’s ass under his fingertips. Maybe Dean would—Jesus! Dean’s leaning over the bed and _touching Sam’s face_ , very gently. Is he feeling for heat at Sam’s temple? Is Sam’s hair all bed-heady? Oh, his fingertips are so rough and warm! “You look like your handsome self again, mister. We gotta stay on top of that Miami Vice shadow- it’s not really a look for you.” Dean is talking, but he’s also stroking Sam’s jaw, softly, and well, possessively! Sam does his best to look like a person a thirty-four-year-old high-school dropout demon hunter who’s saved the world would want to be lovers with. He tries out a sexy smile. Dean smirks at him. “You been into the painkillers, Ranger Rick?  You got a real loopy grin goin’ there! Low blood sugar maybe?” Dean ruffles Sam’s hair and produces, seemingly from nowhere, two Clif bars. “Eat a tasteless cardboard food thing for now, Imma make you some eggs. Backinnaminute.” And just like that he’s gone, but his ass gives a little sashay as he goes out the door. What the hell!

Sam spends the morning poring through books, like he usually does. There’s so much information in the Bunker’s library- but it’s so analog. He needs to start a Project Gutenberg for mysterious tomes and scrolls written in what looks suspiciously like blood.

Midday Kevin goes on a supply run and comes back from town with a bag of meat and a smile. “What’s that? And what’s got into you?” “I’m going to make my mom’s smothered porkchops. And I met a girl at the supermarket and we had sex in the walk-in.” Dean does a quick run-through of everything he knows about contributing to the delinquency of a minor, then remembers Kevin turned eighteen while Dean was in Purgatory. Somewhat at a loss, Dean goes for a cheesy grin and double thumbs up. Kevin heads for the kitchen and the Crock-Pot.

Kevin eats in the library – “I’m not watching even one-tenth of the person who killed her eat my mom’s porkchops. This redemption crap takes some wearing in, you know.” Dean brings a tray into the infirmary and eats with Sam, sitting cross-legged at the end of his bed. Crowley eats his porkchops and wisely says nothing when Sam asks about the recipe and learns that it’s Mrs. Tran’s. Dean blew off a surefire Hell-blockading to save his brother, so he’s not casting so many stones. Inevitably the talk turns to Sam’s weakened state, and where the research is at. Garth called in that afternoon, saying he was headed to Louisville to see a man about a dog; it might be something. They assume Crowley’s absorbed in one of his reality shows, ignoring the “boring lore talk” as usual.

The next morning, Crowley is watching old Bangles videos on YouTube and eating dry Cheerios. The endless crunching is driving Sam nuts. Crowley looks over and just like that, solves the puzzle of Sam’s health. “If you were purified by the trials, doesn’t that mean you’re demon-blood free now? But if you’ve had a tiny bit of demon blood in you for your whole life, bein’ entirely without it would make you sick, yeah?”

Sam stares at Crowley, then reaches for the intercom.


	6. Blood magic and chicken soup.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fixing Sam, and the prospect of sex.

In the end, it’s simple but not easy. Dean expects a whole drama from Sam about keeping his purity and not wanting to be tainted again; Sam however doesn’t seem concerned about the implications of having three drops of demon blood in him so much as the logistics of getting it in there. Sam doesn’t want a random demon in a meatsuit to just bleed in his mouth, for one thing. Because pretty ill-advised for a recovering demon blood addict. Plus, ew, and maybe hep C or malaria or whatever, and consent issues with the meatsuit. Everybody they talk to thinks it’s just crazy enough to work, though. They need to get exactly three drops of blood into Sam, from a demon in its true body, and see if that restores some kind of balance. Like homeopathic medicine, except actually doing something.

Demons in their original bodies, not riding human hosts, aren’t easy to come by. But Crowley is happy to throw his former compatriots under the bus, and they find out about one who seems less egregious, or at least less murderous, than the rest. She’s living as an insurance claims assessor in Hartford. They go through uncountable books and internet searches and phone calls to other hunters, and find a transubstantiation spell that will replace three drops of Sam’s blood with the blood of a demon without the demon knowing it’s happening, a blood ritual that opens a micro-portal. There’s a witch Garth knows, a nail technician who does some magic on the side. She’s the occult equivalent of a white-hat hacker, Garth says, a total magic geek.

The night before they do it everyone is worried. Even Crowley, who seems to be recovering well from the ordeal of being reduced to only 10% despicable. He’s found a salacious biography of Bugsy Siegel from the 40’s, and he takes his book and goes off down the hall. To the library to pester Kevin, or to the lawn chair he set up in the gun range; who knows? “Have some nice quality time, boys!” he tells Sam and Dean.

Dean is sitting on Sam’s bed, Sam propped up on a pile of pillows, Dean holding a bowl of soup he’s been trying to get Sam to eat. “I’ll eat tomorrow”, Sam says. “When I’m better.” Dean puts the bowl on the floor and looks Sam in the eyes. “It’s gonna work.” “I know it is.”

Dean brushes the hair back from Sam’s forehead, like he’s doing it absentmindedly. He does it again, tucking loose strands behind Sam’s ear. He traces Sam’s cheekbone with a fingertip and Sam tilts his face into the caress, shivering. Dean puts the pad of his thumb on Sam’s lower lip. Sam opens his mouth a tiny bit and touches the tip of his tongue to Dean’s skin. Dean closes his eyes. “I couldn’t lose you. Not to lock up Hell, not to stop the Titanic from sinking, not to get Lindsey Lohan sober.” “I know.” “This time, I was like, ‘I gave at the office.’” “Fuck them anyway with their celestial machinations and opaque prophecies.” “Seriously. God is a dick and his flunkies are a bunch of assbutts.”

Dean leans forward and they’re kissing, suddenly, as if a piece of missing footage has been restored to the Director’s Cut of their lives. Mouths opening, tongues swirling together, Sam’s hands coming up to hold Dean’s face, little grunts of pleasure, little creaks from the bed as they fit themselves closer together. Electricity spirals up between them, crackles in Dean’s gasp, sparks as their teeth knock together.  It escalates fast, the tempo increasing. They break for a moment, panting, foreheads touching. Dean gazes at Sam, wipes the spit off his lips with a neat custodial motion, then dives in for his neck. When Dean sucks onto his throat Sam moans, and Dean’s lush, agile mouth follows the vibration. Sam drops his head back on the pillows and Dean clambers onto him, books sliding and thumping to the floor. Sam pulls Dean down onto his body, arms around his ribs, and their hard cocks press together through Dean’s jeans and the blanket and Sam’s sweats. “Ohhh. Oh yeah. Oh, yes, yes.” Dean murmurs into Sam’s neck. “Uh. That’s it. Definitely.” Sam says, as if Dean’s made an actual statement, as if they’re having a conversation. Dean kisses up to Sam’s mouth again and when he gets there Sam opens to him and arcs his body up against Dean’s, writhing and rocking. “Fucking…wanna…” he growls into Dean’s mouth, and grabs Dean’s ass with both hands, his giant hands all over Dean’s ass, kneading and grasping. Then his grip slackens, and Dean pulls back, watches Sam try to catch his breath.

“Little…uh…winded. Not exactly on full batteries at the moment.” Dean slides off and lies next to Sam, stroking his chest. “Gotta get you fixed up so I can have my way with you.” Still dizzy turned-on and breathing hard, but the urgency melted into tenderness. He pets Sam’s face and kisses his brow. “Tomorrow. Eating and, um, maybe some…fucking.”


	7. Bangers and Mash.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean hates witches. Sam kind of likes being chained up in the dungeon.

They’re doing the transubstantiation spell in the dungeon, as a precautionary measure, and plan to shackle Sam up in case his addiction returns full-force.  The witch, Mitzi, is super-nice, a really young Eritrean single mom with a tricked-out Game of Thrones manicure. She taps Sam’s shoulder with a nail that has the Seal of House Greyjoy on it, and says, “Just relax, guy. I’ll get ya fixed up.”

Dean is a little surprised that she’s brought her toddler, a dimpled girl in overalls whose name is apparently Khaleesi. “We, uh, usually have a you-must-be-this-high to do dubious arcane rituals policy,” he says, gesticulating. “Well, either the spell is perfectly safe or if the space-time rift goes sideways most of Kansas will be sheet glass, and the other option I had was to leave her at my mom’s restaurant, which is only about forty minutes from here. Definitely inside the blast radius.” “Oh. Gotcha.” Nevertheless, Dean insists on parking the baby in the library with Kevin for the actual procedure.

Dean’s stomach is sour and he keeps swiping his hand over his mouth the way he does when he’s worrying. Sam seems too dizzy and weak to go through the kind of physical and psychic draining most magic requires. What if he loses his soul or teleports into the future or turns into the car again? What if he gets cured by the demon blood and decides that whole kissing-Dean thing was a terrible idea?

Before the ritual Mitzi breast-feeds Khaleesi, hands her off to Kevin, uploads a couple of selfies to her Tumblr, and offers around some weird-looking kibble of cashews and jerky. “It’s Paleo. Low-glycemic.”  “Good luck, you guys. I’m gonna cruise Craigslist for a new place to crash in case Sam turns evil”, Kevin says, and heads off with the baby.

Crowley edges towards the door. “You guys don’t need me for anything, right? I found the demon, I don’t have any powers now, better if I go have a Hot Pocket, right?” “You’re staying right here, buster. You’re gonna be how we know Sam’s ok.” Crowley sighs and sits down in the corner. Dean takes a deep breath and helps Sam put the heavy rune-covered shackles around his wrists.

He’s locking the second one when Sam leans forward and whispers, soft enough that Mitzi can’t hear, “Does this get you hot?” Dean snorts and ignores him, but a smile replaces his frowny-face, so Sam calls it a win. Mitzi sets up a small tray of sterile tools, lights a can of Sterno under a little brazier, cleans Sam’s palm with blue antiseptic, puts on rubber gloves. Sam feels like he’s getting a piercing in a mall. Dean stands by watching, clearly hoping their next adventure is the kind involving guns and whiskey. He hates witches, even the cute urban Millennium ones.

The spell itself is the usual gobbledy-gook, and Mitzi says it very slowly while drawing a circle in bone ash on the floor. She holds a little dish made of something that looks like rain under Sam’s palm, and draws a scalpel across his palm as deftly as a surgeon. Exactly three drops fall into the dish, which disappears, and Mitzi swiftly pulls a little tool out of her brazier and cauterizes the wound. Sam doesn’t make a sound.

Space folds open above the ash circle, always an unpleasant sight. Random sights and sounds issue from the timestream- mammoths trumpeting as they sink in a tarpit, laser fire from rusting orbital gun batteries in the Kuiper Belt. Sam’s eyes turn black for an almost imperceptible amount of time, like a single frame of film. Dean’s suddenly covered in greasy sweat. In Hartford, the demon hits “Approve” on an MRI claim she’d been planning to bounce.

And then the wormhole closes, leaving a smell of ozone and caramel. Mitzi puts some ointment on Sam’s tiny wound, bandages it neatly, and takes off her gloves. Dean advances on Sam, who’s hanging in the restraints, shaking his shaggy head like a wet dog. “Buddy? Sam? How you feeling?” Sam lifts his head and stares at Dean. “Stronger…faster…better…” he intones solemnly, and then grins like an idiot. “I feel great. Fucking hungry though.”  
  
Mitzi checks Sam over. She presses a strip of blue litmus paper against the sweat on his temple – “Demons are very acidic, if he got too much it’ll turn red-” and sniffs his lymph nodes. “Is the partial-demon control subject ready?” “Yup.” Dean yanks Crowley up and pins his arms behind his back; Crowley appears wounded by this unexpected manhandling, and whines, “Deeeann….what are you doooinnng?” “Checking to see if Sam’s gone cuckoo for demon blood. You don’t mind helping Sam, right?” Dean holds one of Crowley’s hands out to Mitzi, and she pricks his fingers, then fills a transfer pipette with a drop of blood. She waves the blood-filled tube in front of Sam’s nose cheerfully. “How’s it smell, big guy? Delicious? You wanna rip his head off and have a nice drink?” “Smells like hypocrisy and foxhole conversion to me. He can keep his blood.”

Dean watches Sam with a lifetime’s Sam-watching skill, and Sam seems pretty damn okay. Mitzi helps Dean unshackle Sam, while Crowley alternates between sulking and preening at his important role in the process. Dean reaches forward to catch Sam, but Sam smiles and shrugs him off. “I’m good. Not running laps yet, but not too far from it.” They head for the library, where they find Kevin and Khaleesi engaged in a complex, reiterative game of PattyCake. Mitzi hugs them all (which Crowley clearly smarms at) and breezes off, her gear slung over one shoulder and the baby on her hip, somehow with a hand free to text. Everyone else stares at Sam until it gets a little awkward. “You look good, Sam.” “Thanks so much, Crowley. You know what I’d really like? Something nice and substantial to eat.” “I know just the thing! I make the world’s best bangers and mash!”  “Bangers and mash!” Dean shouts. “Pig in a poke! Toad in the hole!” He starts laughing like a loon, and Sam starts laughing too, and pretty soon they’re doubled over, hands on each other’s shoulders, cackling. Then suddenly they’re hugging, Dean’s head tucked into Sam’s neck, and it looks like Dean has tears in his eyes. Crowley and Kevin eye each other and make for the door. “Sorry guys”, Dean mumbles, but he doesn’t take his face away from Sam’s shoulder. “It’s cool,” Kevin says, “better for everybody if the judging train just skips this station.”

Sam takes Dean’s chin in his hand, gently, and kisses him, thoroughly. “Food. And then, that other thing.”


	8. Dessert.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam eat sausages and go to bed.

It’s late when they get done with feasting on sausages and the attendant grade-school humor. Plus there’s all the follow-up with hunters who helped research and thanking Garth for Mitzi and everybody having a couple of beers. But finally they’re in the doorway of Dean’s room. Staring at each other.

Dean’s room has a bed in it. As it happens. Dean looks up at Sam, catches his slanted eyes, looks away. “Are you going to invite me in?” Sam asks. “Christ, you better not be a vampire now. Seriously.” Sam laughs and strides through the door, and he’s already unbuttoning his shirt. Dean grabs him then and tackles him to the bed and they struggle with each other’s clothes until they’re down to their underwear.  They hit another choke point of awkwardness there, another tectonic shift from a lifetime of habits. Sam decides kissing is the best transition state, and he takes Dean’s mouth in his and does everything he’s ever wanted to those impossible lips. Turgid phrases from his long-ago sonnet drift through his mind as he licks Dean’s full, soft mouth open. Images from his fourteen-year-old fantasies rise up as he pushes his tongue into Dean’s mouth. He hums with pleasure, seals Dean’s lips with his and draws the breath out of Dean’s lungs, then inhales deeply through his nose and gives Dean air. He sucks and bites and his head swims with gratitude for this moment that has finally, finally come.

They roll together on Dean’s springy bed. Shoulders pressing together, then hips, locking thighs, palms pressing against each other’s pecs. They nuzzle each other’s faces, bite each other’s necks. Their cocks graze through their boxers like Indy 500 racecars, swapping the lead. They kiss and kiss and kiss, and wind up with Dean flat on his back and spread out under Sam, who’s holding Dean’s mouth open for his probing tongue by the simple expedient of engulfing Dean’s jaw in his giant hand. Dean knows right then that he wants Sam to fuck him, for their first time.

“Will you do it to me? You know…?” Sam makes a guttural sound in his chest and his tongue speeds up, drives into Dean’s mouth at fucking tempo. “Oh yes, I will do you, I will fucking do you til you can’t walk.”  He presses Dean into the bed, grinds his hips and murmurs into Dean’s mouth. “I will do you like I’ve been waiting a decade and a half to…fuck…you…so…good.”  Sam stands up quickly, leaving a draft over Dean’s chest, and yanks his boxers off, then goes for Dean’s. He gets Dean’s eye before he pulls down on the elastic, makes sure Dean feels that Sam is stripping him. He looks at Dean’s hard, thick, pale cock like Dean looks at pie. He licks his lips, a little theatrically and a lot sincerely. Dean’s whole body jerks, and a fine trembling sets up in his hips. Sam waits for Dean’s gaze to fasten on Sam’s own rock-hard and very substantial cock. Dean’s seen it before, of course. But Sam has never presented it to his brother, as a promise and a threat and a gift, before. 

Dean’s eyes are very wide, looking at what he’s gotten himself into. Sam looks pretty strong now, and he’s very, very tall. This must be how that really petite lady Dean fucked one time felt, like she signed up for a bout outside her weight class. He hopes he acquits himself as admirably as that five foot girl. Then Sam’s long body is back on top of him, a blanket of heat and muscle with a burning core. Dean can’t breathe for a second, Sam is turning him on so much.  He wants to pay attention to every single place their skin is touching at once.

There’s the hard bones of their hips meeting, sliding together. There’s Sam’s nipples, drawn up tight and rubbing against his chest. There’s the breadth of Sam’s shoulders over him, the hard arcs of his biceps in Dean’s peripheral vision, enclosing him. There’s the hot zone of Sam’s throat, which he strains up to reach with his mouth. When he bites on the long muscle of Sam’s neck, Sam makes a growly sound and the sound makes Dean completely nuts. He thrashes under Sam’s huge frame, grabbing Sam’s hips to press the hot skin of their cocks together, sucking Sam’s neck and licking the tendon there with hard, flat licks. Sam gasps and drops down onto him, pretty much mashing him into the mattress, and hugs him tight.

“Easy, easy, you gotta let me keep it together for a little bit, I wanna make it good for you. Sssh, shh. I’ll be back in a sec.” Sam rolls off Dean and slides off the bed, picks up his jeans and roots through the pockets. Oh. Condoms. Dean hasn’t been tested since that Amazon incident. Did Sam get tested when he was with Amelia? Dean doesn’t know. They’ve both always been pretty careful- another habit from a military father, like shaving. A discussion to have later on, right now there’s gonna be some serious sex-having and soon, or somebody’s gonna be sorry. “Lube in the top drawer, bedside table.” Sam gets the lube and lies back down with Dean. He reaches over and runs one fingertip over Dean’s frenulum. It feels like no-one’s ever touched Dean’s cock before, it feels like every nerve he has is firing. “ I gotta”, Sam says, and then his silky hair is trailing down Dean’s shaking torso and then his warm, wet mouth is on Dean’s cock.

With Sam slowly sucking the head of his cock, Dean’s frenzy eases off. Suddenly his legs are falling open, his shoulders are sinking back into the mattress, and his heart is full. He relaxes into Sam’s care and attention. It feels like a massage instead of a blowjob, like Sam’s rough tongue is working the flesh of his cock into a previously unimagined state where he can be rock-hard and yet in no hurry. Sam kisses the ridge of his head, rubs his face against Dean’s length, presses his face into Dean’s balls and breathes in, then goes back to alternating sucking and licking. Deans spreads his arms out on the bed, palms up, and opens his hands, tips his head back, and takes it. He’s never felt so loved. Sam knows how to read his every expression, knows his body language like no lover he’s ever had. He lets Sam spiral him up towards the gathering tension of orgasm, his back arching and the muscles in his thighs locked, and then slide him back down, over and over, until his entire body is singing with pleasure. He’s dopey and giddy when Sam pulls off and opens the lube.

Sam reaches out and arranges Dean’s legs, knees bent and open, rolls a condom on, and lubes up his fingers. There’s something…experienced about the way he does it.

“It kinda seems like you’ve done this before. Like more than experimental college blowjobs.” Dean seems a bit nonplussed, and he’s holding very still, waiting for Sam to answer. “Dude. I was in Rhode Island, without a soul. Grindr.“ “Fair enough.” Dean’s obviously sort of hurt, but gets it. No soul, looking for a hookup, sex with men is gonna be a little simpler. “I fucked three different guys who each looked a little bit like you in a different way in one night one time.” “Jesus, Sam, tmi- well, except actually that’s kind of romantic in a really fucked-up way.” “Nobody could ever be as hot as you, Dean. You’ve been the archetype of desire for me since I can remember wanting.” “Ten-dollar words!” Dean scoffs, but his body is relaxed again, his hips rocking. “Have you, done it before?” They’re talking softly now, mouths almost touching. “Only… with girls. Last few years, seems like every girl has a strap-on. I…when you were at Stanford, once, when Dad was on a hunt and I was in Austin by myself. I went to a bar. I got mobbed, Sam! I’m not being a douche, they were fucking _on_ me! I was like, take a number, dude!” “So what happened?” Sam’s eyes are on him, tender and curious, distracting Dean from the finger slipping into his ass. “It was –uhh--so awkward. I just picked the hottest guy and let him blow me in the bathroom. It was a good blow job, I guess. Mmm. That’s good. Don’t stop.”

Dean’s hand makes its way down to Sam’s cock, which is great, because that wide, warm palm goes around Sam like he’s been doing it all his life, thumb rubbing exactly the right spot through the slick latex. But it’s obviously a bit of a shock for Dean, who’s apparently temporarily forgotten that Sam is big all over. “I’m really not gonna be able to walk tomorrow, am I.” “Don’t worry. You’ve been waiting on me for weeks- least I can do is bring you breakfast in bed.” Sam decides it’s time to provide incentive, and rubs Dean where it’ll do the most good with his long, clever fingers. “C’mon, c’mon”, Dean moans, writhing on Sam’s fingers. Sam watches Dean’s hands claw at the bed and decides it’s time. He settles between Dean’s legs and pushes in slowly, and Dean locks eyes with him, nodding a little. Dean’s eyes well up with tears, suddenly, but Sam understands he’s not hurting his brother. Sam lowers his head and kisses the tears away from Dean’s temples. He doesn’t need to say anything about them, or about the warm salt drop that falls down to Dean’s freckled cheekbone. Neither of them needs to say anything.

Slowly, slowly Sam starts to move. He fucks Dean for a long time, fucking love and reassurance into him on long gentle strokes, fucking the memory of desperate teenage desire in short hard thrusts, fucking the grief and loneliness out of him in waves of pleasure, fucking together in synced movements that make a lifetime of training together not such a waste of time after all. They roll and shift positions fast and easy, with artless grace, like kittens wrestling. They push each other towards orgasm, then pull back, gauging one another’s breathing, checking each others’ pulses. At the end they’re on their sides, soaked in sweat, Sam spooned around Dean, almost too tired to move anymore, one hand on Dean’s cock. “I’m gonna make you come now”, Sam says, and he works Dean ruthlessly with his hand.

Dean is embraced, impaled, caught in Sam’s arms, and now he’s going to come, he can’t stop it, he’s going to let go and be completely vulnerable in the grip of the one person who truly knows him. It’s terrifying. Sam nuzzles his neck, and just as Dean suspected he would, starts whispering mushy stuff. “It’s ok”, he says, “you can trust me, just let go, I’m here—“ and then Sam gets the friction exactly right, pushes his cock even deeper into Dean, and murmurs, “I love you”. And Dean comes into Sam’s hand, sobbing with relief and the intensity of it. His shaking body and his hiccupping breaths must set Sam off, because Sam rides his aftershocks in three hard thrusts and then seizes up, arching and groaning and somehow still tenderly finding Dean’s hand and grasping it as he comes.

Afterwards they lie there like they just took out a nest of vamps, a houseful of poltergeists and a couple of Sumerian gods. The bed is wrecked. “I wish we could get pizza delivered here”, Dean mutters. Sam slowly pulls out, making Dean yelp, and ties off the condom, then gets up and puts it carefully in Dean’s trash can. “Get that bag of M&Ms from my desk while you’re up.” Sam comes back to bed with a t-shirt to wipe them off and the bag of candy. Dean stuffs his mouth, then cuffs Sam’s hand away from the bag, and gently feeds M&Ms between  Sam’s lips, like Sam is a baby bird. “Wait til I get my strength back. I’ll really show you a good time.” “Dude, you like pretty much rode me into the ground. Besides, next time you’re the pony.” “Fine by me. Imma check out those mad Dean Winchester banging skills. See what all the fuss is about.” “ _You’re_ fuss..about…fuss…um, what?” Dean says, and Sam realizes he’s about to pass out. Sam thumbs a smear of chocolate off Dean’s lower lip, and arranges them in the bed, hauling Dean’s limp body around with the very last of his energy, until they’re tangled nicely together. “Night, Dean.” “g’nite, Sammy.”


End file.
